Posted
by
BeauHDon Sunday February 14, 2016 @06:16PM
from the buy-one-get-one dept.

Gamers who preorder Remedy's upcoming Xbox One game, Quantum Break, will receive a free digital copy for Windows 10 PCs -- a "crossbuy" strategy that Microsoft's Xbox chief plans to make a "platform feature" of the gaming console.

Behind the scenes, Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data. The Xbox One includes versions of Skype and Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft has said that universal apps written for Windows 10 can theoretically run on the Xbox One, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile phones. Eventually, Microsoft envisions a world where PC and Xbox One gamers will drift between platforms, and where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another.

A game can't be a blockbuster and Linux exclusive. The simple fact of tiny marketshare ensures this is simply not a possibility at the moment and the only way a company would do this is if Steam gave them massive funding (10's of millions) which I doubt is on the cards given how poorly steamboxes have done.

At the moment.Sure, if I had to bet, I'd bet on Windows becoming the de-facto software marketplace, and Microsoft eventually crushing Steam and all the non-Windows game development. But still, Steam and Linux have a chance. Not an insignificant one, either.

And there is a very good chance it(DX12) won't become one.
Vulkan can do pretty much same thing, but also works on Mac, Linux, Android, Iphone, and PS4 and others. It will be released very soon and some big players are already developing engines on it or said will do it as soon as it's released.(any week now it will be released)
A few years ago people were sceptical about Linux gaming, now I play Grid Autosport on Steam Controller, and ALL OF THAT is native.
And oh boy I like steam controller, and I am a PC gamer! No words can explain how sceptical I was at start.

"but also works on Mac, Linux, Android, Iphone, and PS4 and others"
Sounds nice, but in reality the numbers will still be substantially less than Windows PCs and XBONE running DX12.
It's only the the Linux crowd that gives a shit about Vulcan who are desperately to stay relevant.

And oh boy I like steam controller, and I am a PC gamer! No words can explain how sceptical I was at start.

Likewise. I really enjoy the steam controller for a variety of games. As an alternative, I run it through a Steam Link so as to play it on my den's TV. My entire playthrough of Fallout 4 was using this controller, along with a bunch of other recent games. Once you get used to it, it's quite nice to have the option of reprogramming everything precisely the way you want it.

I'm still mixed about the Steam Link, as it tends to eat into the performance of the linked PC, so you need a more robust machine

Not until open source devs start taking he general market seriously enough to up their game. They're still making the shittiest most unfriendly UIs out of all the OSes. Even android, arguably the most user friendly Linux distro, had to be made from the ground up with a strong focus on UI.

That's really the problem though. Linux users want to rule the desktop world, but they don't want to "dumb down" the OS so it's usable by regular people. Make a decision, you can't have it both ways.

Sure, if I had to bet, I'd bet on Windows becoming the de-facto software marketplace, and Microsoft eventually crushing Steam and all the non-Windows game development.

It's worth mentioning that this strategy they're trying to pull with Quantum Break (console and Windows 10 exclusive, not available on other versions) is something they've already tried. Halo 2 for Windows Vista had its fair share of issues, but it certainly didn't help promote the platform, or gained any sympathizers. I wonder what possessed them to try the same strategy again,

What about a linux game that ships with compatibility libraries for Windows:). We could even inflict things like a version of Pulseaudio on Windows. Linux users who can't run the linux version on linux will be able to try to run that mess in Wine.

Here's what people need to remember... If a studio releases a title for PlayStation 4, they're basically there on a Linux port. They just need a market to justify the QA effort and an assertion that engaging in that QA effort would lead to increased sales over remaining on a more limited number of platforms.

If a studio releases a title for PlayStation 4, they're basically there on a Linux port.

Not really, no. The PS4 runs a variant of FreeBSD, but that's not the most important distinction. The most important difference between PS4 and Linux is that on the PS4 you can be sure that all the drivers are well-supported.

I'll let you in on a little secret: what host operating system is used is not a pressing issue for most game developers.

File system access APIs are probably the least critical item on the road map. The biggest problem is the graphics API. Windows favours DirectX, most linuxes favour OpenGL, OS X tends towards OpenGL as well. PlayStation 4, on the other hand, uses Sony's proprietary GNM and GNMX APIs to get access to the custom silicon in the GPU. While PS4's use of GDDR5 is great for on-GPU operations the bandwidth between the system and GPU is atrocious and leads to a whole slew of different performance tuning issues and considerations than you'd see on desktop system. Once you have your engines nailed down on each platform most work goes into tweaking assets to keep graphics performance consistent.

You need to stop thinking like a clueless zealot and start coming to terms with the fact that the average gamer runs Windows and will likely never switch because there is no reason to. He doesn't give a hot shit about your ranting, he just wants his games to run well.

If Linux wants the gamer market they need to have a compelling reason to get people to want to use it. Features or performance gamers can't live without. So far, Linux has no

You know, even as a Windows user, I'm happy Linux is getting more games, but let's please not kid ourselves. A Linux-only blockbuster exclusive is right up there with "year of the desktop" wishful thinking. Windows still has 95% of the desktop market, or something thereabouts. Its only real competition is other platforms which are eating up previously desktop-exclusive functions. The closest we'll get to a Linux-exclusive AAA game in the near future is if it's released exclusively on Android.

Anyhow, the notion of different platforms competing against each other ignores a pretty obvious issue that gamers and most game designers have known forever. It's not a technical limitation that restricts PC games and console gamers from playing together. It's a difference in control hardware, which ends up making console and PC games very different games with respect to control schemes, and thus game design. For instance, pit a PC FPS player against a console player, and everyone knows who's going to generally have a huge advantage. Same thing with a RTS. It's not a knock against consoles - it's just a reality that a mouse and keyboard is a far more precise and flexible input device, so has a massive advantage in most cross-platform play that's geared to those devices.

And as far as making cross-platform games... again, the biggest hurdle is not really technical, assuming you're working with a decently designed game engine. It's one of adapting the game design to different form factors and control schemes. My game engine is written in *very* portable C++, with just a very thin layer for OS-specific stuff. It's actually pretty straightforward to port it to new platforms, so long as they have comparable APIs for rendering video and audio, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of cross-buying games across platforms. Many Steam games already do this, so I'm glad they're joining the party.

It's not a technical limitation that restricts PC games and console gamers from playing together. It's a difference in control hardware, which ends up making console and PC games very different games with respect to control schemes, and thus game design.

I think you're referring to "competitive FPS games" because PC and console players DO play together already in other genres. Besides, there's nothing stopping a console game from supporting multiple methods of control and I have several console games that DO.

For instance, pit a PC FPS player against a console player, and everyone knows who's going to generally have a huge advantage.

Yeah in a "headshot from a mile away centric" FPS, but there are multiple types of FPS. But I'd take analog movement over WASD any day of the week, so I like hybrid control methods and prefer using them when supported. In that instance you use an an

I bet the news will motivate Steam to port even more games to Linux. And who knows, we might see some Linux-only blockbuster exclusives soon.

Slashdot's starry-eyed Linux users are so cute.

Instead of developing games for a nearly insignificant fraction of the market, it's more likely this would motivate Valve/Steam to develop console-like devices so people can play PC games on their living room TVs. Oh wait, they are already doing that!

I understand there are hurdles for the average user to understand the differences in operating systems, but I've yet to find a situation that I can't do a specific task under Linux, and would requir Windows. I do consider myself a power user, possibly more as I also develop software with open source technologies.

Linux really has come a long way. I suggest trying Linux Mint if you haven't recently.

You know, every time I try to seriously use Linux, I end up hitting a brick wall of some sort. A few years ago, it was a driver issue that accelerated my laptop's pointer to about 10x faster than I could control, and this was on the lowest setting. Could never figure it out after half a day's research and tinkering, and that was enough for me. Off it went.

My latest attempt was with Linux Mint (which I really like, btw) in a VM. The most up-to-date version w/ Cinnamon crashes immediately on startup, so I have to use an older version (not a confidence-inspiring start). Initially, my machine connected to my NAS share fine using Samba. Unfortunately, Mercurial can't actually seem to lock files (Windows and Mac have no issues), so I can't push patches to the NAS shared repository, which I use to sync my development machines. Setting up an actual web-based repository - the recommended approach - doesn't look trivial for a Linux noob. Then, my network connection to my NAS disappeared (maybe after an update? not sure), and it won't come back for anything. It's just gone, and a few hours of research and tinkering hasn't brought it back. I looked at trying an alternative protocol (NFS), but had no luck figuring out how to get that to work either. Very frustrating.

This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."

This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."

This is me too. I'm typing this on my Linux Mint laptop which I find a bit of a pig. It works ok as a web/email machine but even youtube makes it fall over (it used to be Win7 and never had a problem).
I've been using Linux on and off since it was invented. It's good for servers where you can customise it down to app specific functions only so make it efficient and secure, but for the desktop uniformity is a big plus, which Linux on the desktop will never have. There's too many distros, too many variations

You know, every time I try to seriously use Linux, I end up hitting a brick wall of some sort. A few years ago, it was a driver issue that accelerated my laptop's pointer to about 10x faster than I could control, and this was on the lowest setting. Could never figure it out after half a day's research and tinkering, and that was enough for me. Off it went.

My latest attempt was with Linux Mint (which I really like, btw) in a VM. The most up-to-date version w/ Cinnamon crashes immediately on startup, so I have to use an older version (not a confidence-inspiring start). Initially, my machine connected to my NAS share fine using Samba. Unfortunately, Mercurial can't actually seem to lock files (Windows and Mac have no issues), so I can't push patches to the NAS shared repository, which I use to sync my development machines. Setting up an actual web-based repository - the recommended approach - doesn't look trivial for a Linux noob. Then, my network connection to my NAS disappeared (maybe after an update? not sure), and it won't come back for anything. It's just gone, and a few hours of research and tinkering hasn't brought it back. I looked at trying an alternative protocol (NFS), but had no luck figuring out how to get that to work either. Very frustrating.

This is how my experience with Linux goes. Every few years I get a hankering to try it, get beaten back by glitches, and think "ok, maybe I'll try again in a few years."

Here here.

The rapid anti Windows 10/8 on slashdot has many users screaming the world is coming to an end and I am switching to LINUX!

In reality I experienced the opposite by 2011 and gave up. Back then Windows 7 was amazing and aero was everything I wished gnome 2 would turn into when gnome3 came out:-( At the time I never had the wildest claim that MS would ever release a bad GUI so Windows fanboy I became after years and years of anti MS hatred.

The only arguments I hear is spyware (but you all run smart TV's and use Android phones and Chrome) , reliability (Windows is more reliable on the desktop for about 10 years now), GUI (Windows 10 is fine and it is fear of change and familiarity). It is the same start menu but the icons now are more animated. OMG END OF THE WORLD. So take the tiles off and bam you got XP style start menu again.

1. Spyware : Why would people cribbing about spyware in Windows use smart TVs? Android phones run cyanogenmod with Xprivacy nicely - and Google's shit can be culled once and for-all, and important security updates on cyanogenmod don't reinstall Google's shit unless you block 153 Google hostnames / IP addresses. Firefox still beats Chrome in privacy enhancement and tree-style-tabs add-ons - and on Linux the performance problems of Firefox are nearly non-existent.

For what average Mom, teenage girl, and Joe six do not care if it reliably unmount all file systems in 3 seconds. An SSD with sleep is good enough. People do not root their phones. Your comment on telemetry is incorrect. Most are bug and security fixes and MS has been doing anonymous telemetry and so does Firefox, Chrome, and most win32 apps for half a decade now. Security? Windows 7 has ASLR, DEP, and other techiques, that Linux is playing catch up on. As MS really did suck I give Bill Gates credit for the

Usually it's because they're rebuilding the plane while it's airborne, some major subsystem or critical application is always in massive change with regressions. The distros try but with tens of thousands of packages it's pretty hopeless to cherry pick stable versions of everything. It's not going anywhere until they manage to take over the apps though. For example I've heard it said many times here that Office/Outlook was pretty much "done" around 97/2003 and yet here we are in 2016 and they still dominate

in the last 10 years and the only issues I had was getting the Broadcom wifi chip working on the Dell Inspirion laptops. Hell I had Hercules RMX/MIXXX operating with a few tiny issues.

Sure there might be some issues here and there you might run into but you make it sound like a cluster fuck when you try Linux. I can't even phantom why anyone would want to go into Windows 10 with the we'll rape you in the ass while spying on you features.

Sure there might be some issues here and there you might run into but you make it sound like a cluster fuck when you try Linux.

The general view is there are more of the GP's experience than there are of your experiences.The only Linux machines I've ever had run flawlessly were on a server, and that had limited requirements as far as hardware and user interaction goes.

Linux is an epic battle vs its user. If you're able to put it in its place it will be your slave forever. But you start with a handicap, with only the assistance of Google to help you. The crowd is on Linux's side chanting a never ending stream of "I don't have this pr

I'm not claiming it's a clusterfuck. All I'm saying is that each time I've tried to use it, I've hit a roadblock serious enough to be a complete showstopper. I'm pretty sure I've gotten unlucky, but it's not like I've got strange hardware to deal with or anything. My laptop from a few years back was a older model Dell XPS 13. My current Linux experiment was running in a VirtualBox VM, so there are unlikely to be hardware issues there. I'm trying to connect to a Synology NAS's SMB share across a standar

That's funny, whenever I try to use Windows I have a similar problem. My printer doesn't work, 7.1 surround sound card w/optical out doesn't work, TV tuner doesn't allow me to capture in as high a resolution and I get sync problems when recording with the Windows software, and on my laptop every time I want to shut down it takes half an hour for the patches to install before I can close the lid. Found this out because one day I went to use it and when I opened it up I was greeted by a message that Windows w

I've seen the same thing myself, although not necessarily with my own experiences. If someone installs a distro, chances are it's either going to be Unity or Gnome 3, both of which are completely awful. It just doesn't make for a good user experience to have that thrown in their face. We're at a time when most of the user-facing bugs have been/are getting ironed out, yet the popular GUIs went down the tubes. Oh well.

It has been a very long time since Linux has not worked out of the box, in fact in the last two Linux Mint installs I did it worked perfectly out of the box. It was more trouble to reinstall Windows because the laptop I had used NVidia Optimus (a 600 series chip in combination with an Intel HD chip). It was a pain in the arse because the drivers for both graphics chips needed to be installed and then an additional driver from the laptop manufacturer to get it to switch between the two chips.

Yeah there is shitty stuff too. Don't see what your you're trying to say.

What do you want to make a bet that AC has an Android phone and typed that from Chrome:-)

Viruses and bsod are so last decade since Windows is NT based now. But I suppose if you have not run Windows since 1999 you think Win98SE which is a dos shell based is how the world still runs where people need to re-image every 6 months and crashes 3 times a day because that is what they remember.

I understand there are hurdles for the average user to understand the differences in operating systems, but I've yet to find a situation that I can't do a specific task under Linux, and would requir Windows.

I have exactly one program that requires Windows. SmartSDR, which controls a Software defined radio that I have. So I run Windows 7 in bootcamp, and have a W10 computer I'm testing.

The exciting thing is there is some software in beta for the radio on OSX that I'm testing. I managed 4 years Windows free and loving it. I'll raise a glass of Patron if I can kick it again soon. Now if a Linux version comes out, I'll drain the bottle.

Watch whether games you buy are "crossbuy" so you can avoid them. Piss-poor console ports are already a known problem, but when it becomes pretty much a requirement that whatever you want to play on your PC has to run on an anemic console, you may bet the 60 bucks that it's going to be just a crappy port with no consideration to different controls, different resolutions or different play styles than waste that money on buying the rubbish.

I'm already fed up enough with more and more games being developed for

Ah, so there is now a good excuse that the controls suck, the resolution can't be tuned to the native resolution of the screen, the aiming is wonky, the difficulty is insulting to three year old autistic paraplegics, there are loading times where there is no sensible reason to have any since your SSD doesn't have to read BluRays and the network support needs a lot of your support to even consider making a connection.

Why would a PC game that happens to be running on a console run badly on a PC? I've got breaking news for you: PC games also manage to run on lower spec crummy desktops. The Minimum System Requirements are usually a few generations *older* than the latest consoles. So if you're going to make a cross-release game you just make the PC version and then hardcode the resolution to "1920x1080" and the quality settings to "Textures: Good, Models: Better, Shaders:Best,Lighting: Good." And hit ship.

Also, this might surprise you but every PC Game you probably play today will work great with an Xbox One controller. Just plug it in and you're good to go. The controls don't suck.

Aside of that, yes, there are actually a select few good console-to-PC ports. They're just exceedingly rare and the hit-to-miss ratio is not favorable enough to warrant risking a dime on trying to find out whether one is.

There ARE genres other than FPS's you know. And need I remind you that console and PC players ARE playing together already.

For example, War Thunder. War Thunder is a vehicle combat game (by the same guys who did IL-2) designed for accessibility to those who AREN'T Janes-reading bearded ex-military grognards. It has an "instructor" mouse flying mode for those PC users who have no desire to use a joystick. The HOTAS guys on PC consider that easy-mode and actually consider the Dual Shock users kindred sp

Yes, there are other genres than FPS and RTS. I wouldn't wanna play a platformer on a keyboard/mouse setup. Then again, I don't want to play platformer games. I want to play FPS and RTS.

And watching those genres that are at best as at home on a console as jump'n'run games are on keyboard/mouse setups being butchered to be crammed into consoles and then half-assedly ported to a sensible platform for them really pains me.

So in your bizzaro world you think that a cross play RTS will start with the Console version and then impose a gamepad on the desktop version?! If anything they'll start with the mouse and keyboard RTS (where RTSs actually sell well) and then slap on an awkward (and FREE) console/gamepad port.

Aside of that, yes, there are actually a select few good console-to-PC ports. They're just exceedingly rare and the hit-to-miss ratio is not favorable enough to warrant risking a dime on trying to find out whether one is.

Yes, Console/PC multiplatform games are a real hit and miss except for in the last 12 months (including but not limited to....)

You do know that the RTS genre originated on consoles, right? And that base-centric RTS without all that silly APM obsessed "you have to micromanage every unit so you need to be hopped up on Ritalin to be a competitive tournament player" paradigm work fairly well.

So yes, I HAVE played RTS with a controller. Basically you control the mouse pointer with the joypad. You can probably find video of people playing Dune 2000, the C&C's, or Warzone 2100 on a PSone on youtube...

Why would a PC game that happens to be running on a console run badly on a PC? I've got breaking news for you: PC games also manage to run on lower spec crummy desktops. The Minimum System Requirements are usually a few generations *older* than the latest consoles. So if you're going to make a cross-release game you just make the PC version and then hardcode the resolution to "1920x1080" and the quality settings to "Textures: Good, Models: Better, Shaders:Best,Lighting: Good." And hit ship.

Also, this might surprise you but every PC Game you probably play today will work great with an Xbox One controller. Just plug it in and you're good to go. The controls don't suck.

But the controls do suck.

Remember the Diablo-style drag-and-drop inventory system introduced 20 years ago? Well for modern games, making a good inventory system is effing rocket science. Look at the inventory system in Borderlands (any version) and tell me how the hell that got out of design, let alone passed QA. Let's play Unreal Tournament (1999, 2004, or 2015 alpha) together, you with a controller, me with a mouse and keyboard, and tell me there's no difference.

Xbox and PS4 are both x86 PCs. If anything every console game is just a specific quality setting that's been well polished. This notion of controls being crappy is ludicrous--it's been 10 years since console controls have seen any major change for first person shooters. It's been 30 years since there's been a major change from WASD and Mouse+Keyboard. It's not like developers have to spent a ton of time refining controls these days. Some games play better or worse with a control pad. I enjoy Rocket League with a control pad and I play Fallout 4 with a control pad... and I just use an XBox One controller on the PC for both. Steam works great with a control pad. I play Battlefield 4 and TF2 with a mouse and keyboard.

Porting for Windows 10 takes nearly no work. You're developing either a DirectX12 game for Windows or you're developing a DirectX12 game for Windows. Create your art assets at multiple detail levels. Polish your shaders to run at levels that run smoothly on the XBox One. Then for the PC give people the option of cranking the settings and resolution to the Max.

I don't like to buy Xbox One games anymore because I want to also be able to play them on my laptop with a controller plugged in when I'm on a plane or in a hotel while traveling. I like to be able to play games on my PC at work during lunch. But I also would love to be able to play my same games on my Xbox at home which until recently had a better video card and cpu.

The Xbox One is just becoming one of many reference PCs like the Surface Pro line. The Xbox One Controller is now available for PC and Xbox One. The Oculus Rift is shipping with an XBox One controller. I can't see how you can defend lock-in with consoles. Why wouldn't you want to play your PC games on your XBox? Why wouldn't you want to play your Xbox games on the PC?

Because to run a PC game on an XBox it has to be cut down and trimmed to fit to the limitations of the console. And you don't think they'd give the PC something "extra", like, say, improved graphics, better resolution or multimonitor support.

Wasn't there even some kind of provision in the contractual requirements for console developers that they must not create a "better" version than the one on the console?

I'm guessing you only game on a gamepad? If you want an example of a modern game that has absolutely horrible controls on anything but a gamepad, look at Dragon Age: Inquisition. Its controls are absolute shit on a mouse when in combat -- the first DA has fantastic controls. Despite EAware's lies, the game was designed only for a gamepad, so when it comes to mouse controls, they are downright crap and complete afterthought. This game is one of the

perhaps because the graphics cards are at least last generation on the consoles?

Because PC games never release options to run on older graphics cards?

The PC Master Race has always run a wide variety of hardware from multiple generations, multiple operating systems and hugely diverse control sets. You could play a game like flight simulator on an ancient dinosaur of a business all-in-one or you could crank up the quality settings for the day with the latest in volumetric cloud rendering and atmospheric effects. You could play it with a keyboard, or you could play it with a full custom

The idea with a single underlying OS and API is they aren't ports anymore. You write a game for one and it runs on both. Consoles nowadays are just customised and specialised PC's, gone are the days when a port was a massive undertaking.

That sounds great in theory. In reality, it's not quite that simple. Many game engines are already cross platform. We already know how to do this from a technical perspective.

The real work is in mapping controls and tuning gameplay, design, interfaces, etc, to work with those different control schemes and form factors (if you're talking about different sizes). PCs also require much more work to scale properly than console games, since they can work with a very wide variety of hardware - and this tends t

I'm tempted not to answer a rude AC, but I'll go ahead and bite. I happen to be a professional game developer, and have worked on several different game engines at the companies I've worked for. I'm just telling you what I've seen. Or if you don't believe me, just grab a cross platform open source engine like Unreal or Unity and inspect the code yourself, and it will validate what I'm telling you.

Let me dispense with two myths: First, a very large portion of the work involved in a game engine isn't dire

Correct me if I am wrong but one thing I did not notice in the article is how Microsoft approaches the second hand market with respect to Quantum Break.

Ok let's say someone goes out and buys Quantum Break for their XBox then uses the digital download of the PC version to install on their PC. Personally I don't see any problems with this however the words "digital download" sets off alarm bells. Now say that person goes to a store that deals in second hand games and trades or sells their copy of Quantum Brea

To me that is Microsoft harking back to the introduction of XB1 and basically having a no second hand games policy but this time they are doing it by stealth.

Worth noting: the original plan is a better deal for the customer. MS was talking about how people who owned games could share them with a certain number of friends. So you'd need one copy among 5 friends, and two of them could be playing simultaneously. (MS gave the specific example of two friends playing online against each other.)

but when it becomes pretty much a requirement that whatever you want to play on your PC has to run on an anemic console

I think the issue is that it is more of a requirement that whatever you want to play has to run on some kind of anemic budget laptop. Check out the steam hardware survey sometime.

I'm already fed up enough with more and more games being developed for some console, then being half-assed ported to PC to cash in again

the PC is an afterthought due to the buying habits of PC gamers themselves. Some guy buying Skyrim for $5 on some steam Sale in 2016, isn't going to be a target customer for Bethesda. Neither are all the pirates in Eastern Europe.

I'm still waiting for Windows 10 to come out of alpha testing.(Seriously it has a bug that causes the start button to not work. When this happens store apps and edge might not work either. The solution is to either create a new account or possibly reinstall windows. How the hell did that one get missed?)

Actually I have the latest build when this happened. Tried sfc/scannow and it failed. Actually tried the things listed here
http://home.bt.com/tech-gadget... [bt.com]
and tried to reinstall apps as well which didn't work. They're right that if you create a new account it comes back.(Or install classic shell.) Oh to make matters worse I actually did a clean install of Windows 10. (I upgraded my system to register it with Microsoft and then wiped the disk and did an install.) Before anybody asks I have an Asrock Z7

There is literally a well known bug in Windows 10 that causes the start button to not work. (Google "windows 10 start button not working") I've been hit by the bug and at this point the only work around I could get was installing classic shell. Maybe it's me but a bug like this is so basic it should have gotten taken care during the alpha phase.(Since apparently it's existed since then.) It's hard for me to not complain since at a fundamental level the OS is so broken.

Haven't you heard? MS laid off most of it's QA staff. They're basically leaving testing to the end user, that's why they gone out of their way to implement telemetry. Windows will never be final from now on, it'll remain in a perpetual alpha state, as new and new untested updates are installed forcibly.

The console performs bad: Let's promote cross platform with the PCOn the other hand if the console was performing well, they'd do everything in their power to keep the PC as far from the Xbone as possible.

But, but, but, that's a lost sale! Are you making the ridiculous suggestion that these people "weren't buying a second copy anyway"? Are you implying Microsoft is doing this crossbuy feature because it doesn't cost them anything?

If they had started to do this back in the XBox360 days. I love gaming, so I have a PC and a console. I do double dip time to time, for games like Battlefield, Fallout, and Skyrim. But if Microsoft is going to make cross licenses like Steam does with all its vendors for PC/Mac/Linux, then I would have bought an XBox One going into this generation. I'd already have saved money by Fallout 4 on PC/PS4 if the cross platform was just built in to begin with.